Three days in Rio

We were supposed to arrive in Rio on 14th of February late at night. We arrived at Salvador airport earlier that day and luckily we could change our flight with Brazilian airline TAM to a five hours earlier flight for free. That was great, as we did not have to spend five more hours at the airport and could enjoy Rio on the first day by daylight. We took a taxi to the city center of Rio. The taxi driver explained to us, that he has to drive from the other side of the city, as it is carnival time and many streets are closed. We were happy, that we had already negotiated the price for the ride, as we would have paid probably a lot more with the taximeter. On the other hand going back from the city center to the airport we found out, that the real price for taxi without traffic was only half the price we had negotiated going from airport. The conclusion in this case for us was to trust the taximeter and not to ask for the taxi price in advance, as the taxi drivers usually try to earn more money from tourists, who have no clue about the prices. From our taxi experience in Brazil it is also best to take the official white taxis, which appear to be the most trustful.

On the first day in Rio we enjoyed the atmosphere a lot, because the streets were full of dressed up and relaxed people. At the carnival in Rio men traditionally dress up like women, so we saw a lot of men in tutus, skirts, bikinis and with wigs. Next day we started our sightseeing tour at eight o’clock in the morning. We were surprised to see so many dressed up people and we were wondering if they stayed up the whole night or if they got up early in the morning, got dressed up once again and went on the streets to celebrate carnival. During the carnival time in Rio different streets are closed and people are going by buses and metro from one city area to another to party and meet friends.

If you are in Rio, of course you have to visit the Jesus Statue at the Peak of the Corcovado Mountain and the Sugar Loaf Mountain. To visit both places we took metro, omnibus and also walked some kilometres in the hot sun. The huge advantage of big cities is Metro, which makes the traveling easy, cheap and fast. The Jesus Statue was quite impressive, but the view from the mountain was far more impressive. Unfortunately we had to wait some time to enjoy the view, as huge clouds surrounded the Corcovado Mountain.

Our highlight in Rio was the Carnival at Sambódromo. More than ten Samba schools compete against each other during two days. We bought tickets for the event on Sunday. The event started pretty late and strong rain started just before it. Our mood was very low and we discussed if we should go at all. We decided to go anyway, but after half an hour we were completely soaked in rain. Surprisingly the Sambódromo was crowded and people celebrated the samba schools as if there was no rain. We could feel that the event is really important for Brazilians and it was awesome to celebrate with them. We would highly recommend going to Rio Carnival to everyone.